


Under Lock and Key

by unifiedbuzzard



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Babies and Feels, Bondage, Chains, Childbirth, Dirty Talk, Forced Feminization, Forced Pregnancy, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Max is in a bad place mentally, Mental Breakdown, Mentions of Abortion, Misgendering, Mpreg, Muzzles, Other, Panic Attacks, Porn, Pregnant Sex, Rape, Rough Sex, Sexist Language, Technically But Maybe Not Conventionally, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Man Max, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Who knew I could do that, Yes I Am Back To My Sick Ways, don't worry it surprised me too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2018-11-06 11:38:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11035440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unifiedbuzzard/pseuds/unifiedbuzzard
Summary: Max is a trans man. Up until now he has kept his secret safe, but when he is captured by Warboys and given a full medical examination in preparation to become a blood bag, his secret is uncovered, and unfortunately for him the Immortan has better uses for a full-life “woman” than just giving blood.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this kinkmeme prompt:  
> http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/2704.html?thread=1713296#cmt1713296  
> Joe glimpses the feral the war boys have brought back, and wonders if someone who can survive alone in the wastes for so long might give him strong sons. She's so wild that Joe has to have Max heavily restrained to breed her. 
> 
> Furiosa has been planning to help the wives escape for a few months when she hears rumours of a sixth wife she didn't know about. Finally she discovers a hidden room in the citadel with a single window where heavily pregnant fem!Max (or trans-man Max) is being kept strapped to a bed almost 24 hours a day, still at Joe's pleasure, muzzled and treated like less than an animal.

Max has always been pretty good at evading hostiles, but he must be slipping. He hears them coming too late. He can’t get away. Can’t avoid the explosive lance aimed at his car. By the time his car stops rolling and he struggles his way out of the wreck, they’re already upon him. He’s not stupid enough to fight with a gun to his head.  
  
He’s not really worried about anything other than the fact that he is captive. At least at first. He expects he’ll be used for hard labor, maybe thrown into a fighter pit or sold as a slave to someone else. He doesn’t expect, when they bring him to their fortress of rock, that he would get a medical examination.  
  
The man who orders the white-painted soldiers around doesn’t seem to Max anything like a doctor, but he looks Max up and down as the Warboys hold him in chains, licks a drip of saliva off his lower lip, and says, “let’s check you out. I bet you’re a full-life, strong as you are.”  
  
Max fights with all his strength as they start stripping him. They can’t find out. The very thought of being discovered in a place like this is enough to give Max nightmares. They start with just his top, taking off his jacket and eventually getting his shirt off. Max roars and rages, just trying to get away.  
  
“Hold on, hold on, hold him!” The Organic Mechanic steps toward Max as the Warboys force him back against the wall and pin him hard. The doctor scrutinizes Max’s chest, then reaches out and runs a hand across one of the matching scars crossing his pecs as Max fights against the hands holding him. He looks up at Max’s face, sees the fear in his eyes, and narrows his own eyes suspiciously. His other hand suddenly grabs Max’s crotch roughly. Max jerks his body in surprise.  
  
“Get the rest of his clothes off,” the Organic Mechanic says sharply. Max kicks and flails and tries to bite, but it’s not long before he’s standing naked for all to see. The Organic Mechanic stands in front of him, looking dumbfounded as he stares down at Max’s crotch. “Well I’ll be… This feral’s a woman.” He steps forward again and his hand slides down over Max’s crotch. Max closes his eyes and tries to control his breathing. It’s too late. He’s been found out.  
  
The Organic Mechanic’s finger slips between the lips of his cunt, rubs back and forth a couple of times, then works slowly up into him. Max gasps at the invasion and tries to jerk away, but they’re holding him too tightly. He hides his discomfort and humiliation behind a growl, but his thighs are shaking.  
  
The man violating him slides his finger out again and steps back. “Shave all that hair off of her. The Immortan’s not going to want to see her that way. And if any of you so much as touch her, the Immortan will have your balls.”  
  
They pin Max on a table as the Organic Mechanic leaves, and start shearing him roughly. Max yells and kicks. He has to get away. Whatever they have planned for him, there is no way it can be good.  
  
When his hair and beard are cut short, they flip him over and hold him down hard as they brand the back of his neck. Max screams and writhes, and he feels dizzy and nauseous as they pull him back onto his feet and tie a simple wrap around his waist. They cuff his wrists and ankles, then attach him to the wall and leave him alone. Max wants to curl up, to protect himself like a hurt animal, but he can’t even crouch before the chain on his wrists reaches its limit from where it is attached high on the wall. He sags against the wall, takes a deep breath, and tries to think his way out of this, but it’s hard to think with the panic in his chest and the pain still searing across the back of his neck.  
  
It’s not long before the Organic Mechanic comes back with another retinue of Warboys, and they drag him out of the little room. Max tries to focus, to learn about this place so he can maybe find a way out when the opportunity presents itself, but his mind is frantic and everything around him looks the same.  
  
They take him up to a grand set of rooms filled with intact furniture and relics from the old world. A large man with long, pale hair and a toothed mask over his face looks up from the book in his hands. The Warboys stop in the middle of the room and hold Max tightly by his arms as the Organic Mechanic steps forward.  
  
“Brought her for you,” he says to the older man. “What do you want done with her?”  
  
The man stands up and steps forward slowly, looking at Max like he doesn’t quite know what he is. “Why does she look like that?”  
  
“Seems she underwent some surgery and treatment to look like a man.” The Organic Mechanic scrutinizes Max for a minute.  
  
The Immortan steps up to Max and looks at him closer. “Is it reversible?”  
  
“Afraid not,” the Organic Mechanic replies. “But her breeding parts should still be good. If you want her, I’ll give her a thorough physical to make sure.”  
  
Max’s blood runs cold, and he looks at the man in front of him in fear. The warlord reaches up and cups Max’s cheek in his large hand, then runs his thumb across Max’s plush lips. Max curls his lips back in a snarl and bites the digit, clamping down hard.  
  
The man lets out a low roar of pain and wrenches his finger out of Max’s mouth. He quickly strikes Max across the face, snapping his head to the side.  
  
“Careful, Joe. She’s pretty feral.”  
  
Joe examines the teeth marks in his thumb, then looks back up at Max. His eyes are smiling. “I like her. She’s strong. I’ll have her.”  
  
*****  
  
They bring Max back down to the room they had him in before, and the Warboys strip off his wrap, unchain his ankles, and pin him to the table again. Joe has followed, and stands back, watching with interest. The Warboys hold him down hard as he struggles, and they pull his knees up and apart as the Organic Mechanic steps forward and leans down to look at Max’s cunt closely. Max fights against them a little longer, but it’s clear he’s not getting away from them so he goes still, save for the unavoidable shaking of his body, as he tries to hide in his own head, to get himself out of here, in mind if not in body. He can’t beat them, but that doesn’t mean he has to let them beat him.  
  
He jerks in pain as a cold, lubricated speculum slides into his vagina, and he squeezes his eyes shut as it opens him up. The stretch brings a short cry to his throat, and Max pushes harder to go back in his mind, to leave this place and its tortures. He tries to make himself numb to it.  
  
He comes out of it several minutes later when the Organic Mechanic removes the speculum and speaks, after probing and pressing and feeling. “All parts intact. She has no scars to indicate her ovaries were removed, so she should be good to breed.”  
  
“Perfect.” Joe’s voice makes Max shudder. He feels lightheaded and sick as they pull him up off the table and put the wrap back around his waist.  
  
*****  
  
Joe wastes no time. Max is immediately taken far through the rock tunnels, and brought to a small room with a bed, a table, and a single, small window. They lock a muzzle over his face and strip him naked again as he fights madly. They then chain him tightly down to the bed, and at Joe’s order, improvise some chains to keep Max’s legs bent and spread wide.  
  
The Organic Mechanic gives Joe some sort of shot, and then when they’re gone and the door clicks shut behind them, Joe quickly locks it and starts stripping off his armor and clothes.  
  
Max’s eyes go wide as they fall on the flaccid cock dangling at the man’s groin. He shakes his head desperately and tries to push himself away, but he’s going nowhere, chained to the bed as tightly as he is. He knew, deep in his mind as soon as he was found out, that he was going to be raped, but he didn’t let himself think about it. Even when they talked about breeding him, even when the Organic Mechanic was looking deep inside him to try to see if he could conceive, he hadn’t let himself dwell on it. But now, chained in this humiliating position and faced with that lumpy cock, it suddenly feels so much more real and immediate.  
  
His vagina feels like a body part he shouldn’t even have. Nothing belongs in there. Even Max’s own fingers have always felt wrong and uncomfortable, and he hasn’t even touched himself in longer than he can remember. The very thought of a penis inside it makes him choke up some bile.  
  
He thrashes against his chains as the disgusting man, covered in sores and warts, climbs onto the bed at his feet, then crawls up between Max’s open legs, his eyes filled with anticipation as he looks over Max’s exposed cunt. Max can’t stand to watch him, and he closes his eyes as his muscles strain against the chains, his body shaking. He’s going to be raped. He’s going to be bred like an animal, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.  
  
“You’ll give me a strong son, I can tell.” His thick fingers are suddenly on Max’s cunt, working between his lips and pressing up into him. Max flexes his hips in a futile attempt to get away from the touch, and bites his lip. The two thick fingers are painful inside of him. Max is also dry, despite the lubrication the Organic Mechanic had used, enough that Joe can barely get his fingers in, though not for lack of trying. His fingers eventually slide out, and he leaves Max long enough to grab a jar off the table on the other side of the room, and comes back to climb between his legs again. Max twitches as Joe’s thigh touches his.  
  
Joe unscrews the top of the jar and scoops two fingers inside. They emerge covered in a pale jelly, and he brings them down and works them into Max’s cunt again. He twists his wrist as he presses inward, smearing the lube around. Max’s breathing becomes strained and painful as he is unwillingly invaded. The fingers retreat again, and Max can’t look as he scoops up more lube and brings his fingers back to Max’s opening. He rubs them up and down Max’s slit, then presses them in again, going deeper this time, lubricating him thoroughly. Max groans in pain as Joe goes in to the very base of his fingers, his palm pressing hard into Max’s groin.  
  
Even after he’s pressed the lube as deep into Max as he can and practically rubbed it in, he continues to toy with Max, sliding in and out of him, fucking him slowly with his fingers as his other hand strokes his own cock to hardness. Max keeps his eyes squeezed shut. He’s helpless to stop this, and he hates it.  
  
Joe curls his fingers hard within Max, making him jolt with a startled, pained sound that he quickly cuts off. He strokes him and presses in deep again, his palm starting to rub against Max’s clit. Max wonders if the man actually cares to try to pleasure him, but even the most skilled touch isn’t going to do it for him. Not in this situation, not with the parts he wishes he didn’t have, not with anything forced inside him like this, and definitely not with this man. He struggles against his chains as Joe continues trying to stimulate him, fingers in painfully deep as he rubs hard, but it only lasts a few minutes before the man gives up and moves on, sliding his fingers out of Max slowly.  
  
Joe lubricates his cock too, then crawls forward on his hands and fits himself between Max’s thighs. Max’s toes curl in fear of what is about to happen to him, and his hands ball into tight fists. He tries not to shake, and forces back a whimper of terror as he braces himself.  
  
Joe’s hard cock presses against his folds, and Max takes in a shaky gasp. The warlord presses his hips forward a little more, and the thick head starts to spread Max open. Max bites his lip again to hold back a pained groan, and tries to go back in his mind, but it’s too real this time, too terrifying for his mind to leave it behind.  
  
“Mm, perfect,” Joe moans above him as he slides in smoothly, breaching Max’s vagina with one steady push.  
  
A burning sensation spreads upward into Max as Joe slowly pushes deeper into him, and Max finally cries out at the pain. The cock feels ten times thicker than it looked, and as Joe settles into him, balls-deep in his cunt and still pressing like he hopes to get more of himself inside, the pain seems to take over Max’s whole being. His voice is strained as he groans.  
  
Joe pulls back and presses in slowly again, stretching Max open with another surge of pain, then repeats the motion faster. Then faster, and faster. Max feels invaded like he never has before, and he cries out again as Joe picks up an even rhythm. He screams and froths in rage and humiliation as Joe fucks him freely, holding himself over Max’s chained body. Even with the lube, the friction builds up to an uncomfortable heat, and Joe starts moaning in pleasure as he pumps against Max’s pelvis, his thick body pressed between his thighs.  
  
“You fit me just right,” Joe moans in a heated tone. “You were made for this, made to be bred, made for this pleasure.”  
  
Max jerks against his chains, and feels his skin start to bleed beneath them. He still hasn’t opened his eyes. He won’t look at the man raping him, doesn’t want to see the pleasure on his disgusting face. Joe lowers himself onto Max’s body and starts panting against his neck as his hips bob against Max’s, his cock sliding in and out, over and over and over. He brings one hand up to caress Max’s chest and the scars where his breasts used to be. Max’s skin crawls at every sensation assaulting his body.  
  
When Max finally falls still, panting, his muscles over-exerted from fighting the chains, Joe rumbles a laugh and pets him encouragingly. “That’s a good girl. Let me fill you, let me breed you.”  
  
Tears run from the corners of Max’s eyes, but he won’t let Joe hear him cry. Joe slows his pace, but each press in is still forceful, unyielding. Joe’s voice rises in moans while Max keeps his carefully silent, not even letting himself grunt at the pain of the cock deep inside him.  
  
The fear in him starts to rise back up like bile in his throat as Joe nearly cries out, his thrusts becoming erratic, and Max realizes he’s cumming inside him. Max doesn’t know if he can still get pregnant, but if he can, he does know being forced to carry out a pregnancy will drive him mad. He can’t cope with even the idea of it. He doesn’t want a child, certainly not a child of rape, certainly not one he has to give birth to himself.  
  
Joe peaks in his orgasm and collapses on top of Max as he finishes, breathing heavily. He stays there a long time, feeling the trembling of Max’s body as Max tries not to focus on the feeling of the cock slowly softening inside him.  
  
Finally Joe lifts himself up and slides wetly out of Max, then goes to re-dress himself before he comes back to the bedside. Max’s eyes are finally open, and he looks up at him but wishes he didn’t. The smug smile on Joe’s face just before he puts his breathing mask back on makes Max nauseous again. Joe reaches down and pets his forehead and Max jerks his head to the side.  
  
Joe laughs. “You’ll give me a strong, fierce heir, I’m sure of it.” He leans down and loosens the chains under the bed that hold Max’s legs open, letting Max straighten his legs and bring them together. He doesn’t loosen any of the other chains.  
  
Max closes his eyes and bites the inside of his lip to hold back the tears as Joe runs his hand down Max’s body on his way out of the room. Max stays silent until the door locks from the outside with a solid click, and Joe’s footsteps retreat, and then finally Max lets a sob burst from his chest. He pulls uselessly at his chains again, wishing he could turn on his side and curl up tight around himself as he sobs. He feels like he can feel the semen inside him, thick and almost heavy, and he wants to try to get it out, to clean himself of it, to wash away Joe’s touch and make sure he doesn’t get pregnant with the disgusting man’s child.  
  
But he can’t. All he can do is lie there and shake with tears that won’t stop. He is owned now. He has been branded and bred like something less than human, and even if he can find a way to escape now, there’s no erasing those two facts.


	2. Chapter 2

Max is left alone in that room for a long time. Night falls and he doesn’t sleep. The sun rises, and he watches the little square of light coming through the window as it moves across the floor as the day passes.  
  
Late in the afternoon the Organic Mechanic comes in, and Max’s hackles rise at the sight of the man who tore his secret from him and handed it to the man who would use him.  
  
The Organic Mechanic chuckles as Max’s gaze practically sends daggers into him. “I take it you didn’t enjoy your wedding night? What a shame.” He sets a pail and a tray and a bottle on the floor, then puts his hand on Max’s knee and pulls it aside as he leans down to inspect Max’s cunt. With a growl Max jerks his knee away and swiftly smashes it up into the man’s jaw. The Organic Mechanic stumbles back with his hand to his mouth, swearing angrily. He doesn’t try to look again.  
  
He approaches cautiously and unlocks the chains that hold Max down to the bed, but leaves the muzzle attached to the headboard by a long chain, and attaches another long chain between his handcuffs and the headboard before he unlocks the one that holds them tight up against the posts. He leaps away as Max quickly gets up.  
  
“You can relieve yourself and eat,” the Organic Mechanic says, pointing to the pail and tray of food, still sour about being kneed in the face. Max sits on the edge of the bed and stares him down with fury in his gaze until the man finally leaves the room and locks the door behind him.  
  
Max drops to his knees beside the bed after he’s gone. He has enough slack in the chain on his wrists to just barely reach the floor with them. He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in almost two days. He opens the plastic bottle first, and sniffs its contents. It’s water, the cleanest he’s smelled in a long time. He tips a bit past his muzzle and into his mouth. No chemical taste. It could still be drugged, but he’s so thirsty that once he’s had one sip, he can’t stop himself from chugging the rest of the bottle. What would be the point of drugging him anyway, when they already have such complete control over him?  
  
He breaks apart one of the biscuits on the tray and shoves the pieces through the bars of his muzzle, but doesn’t have much of an apatite to finish it. He focuses instead on getting free, but the bed frame is solid, and even bolted down into the floor. He shakes it and pulls and pushes and rams himself into it, but it doesn’t budge. When he’s worn himself out he sits on the floor, wanting nothing to do with that bed, and pulls his knees up close.  
  
*****  
  
That evening Joe comes back to breed him again, bringing a couple Warboys to muscle Max back to the bed. Soon he’s chained down tight again, his legs forced open so Joe can rape him without resistance, and it’s just him and Joe in the room. Max closes his eyes and swallows back his fear as Joe closes in on him. He holds himself forcefully silent as Joe settles between his legs and sinks his cock into him, though he hates the feeling more than anything and can’t help but squirm as it stretches him open.  
  
Joe fucks him harder this time, eventually forcing grunts out of Max despite his attempts to keep himself quiet. It hurts too much, Joe slams into his body too hard, enough that Max thinks he might bruise from it. Max’s cunt is still sore from yesterday, and tonight Joe is just riding on the lubrication left over from last time. It’s not nearly enough. He strains against his chains and tries to focus on the pain of that rather than the pain between his legs and the feeling of Joe’s hands on his skin.  
  
Joe changes his position, getting his knees under him, and he grips Max’s ass in both hands and forces his hips up off the bed, crushing Max’s body against the chains just so he can fuck into him a little better. He speaks to him in filthy phrases that make Max sick.   
  
“Yeah, take daddy’s cock. You know your purpose, don’t you?” He thrusts in with indulgent moans and grunts. Max can barely move, can’t even fight against it.   
  
“Mm, good girl. I’m going to fill you with my seed.” His hands squeeze Max’s ass as his hips pound between his legs. Max grits his teeth. He feels like he’s going to be torn open, or at least rubbed raw inside.   
  
“Oh, I’m so deep in your pussy. Can you feel it? Can you feel my power inside of you?”  
  
Another couple minutes of agonizing fucking pass, and Max thinks he may finally scream. Joe is building toward his orgasm, but the knowledge that it will be over soon would be more comforting if Max knew it wouldn't also involve a load of cum inside him.   
  
“You’re going to look so good with your belly swollen with my child.”  
  
Joe cums with a hard slam and a heavy groan, and doesn’t relax his grip on Max’s ass until he has emptied himself and is panting in exertion. He slides out of Max’s cunt as he lets Max's hips lower back to the mattress, and then he gets up and climbs off the bed. Again Max holds back his sobs until Joe is dressed and out of the room. He doesn’t know how much of this he can take.  
  
The next day the routine repeats. Max fights with everything he has when Joe brings Warboys to chain him down again, but it’s no use. They just bring more in to pin him with painful grips until he’s restrained and Joe is free to fuck him. Max snarls and thrashes anyway. Joe is apparently feeling gentle this time, stroking his fingers lightly over the bruises blossoming across Max’s inner thighs before he slides himself carefully into him. He fucks Max slowly, though it doesn’t make it any more bearable to Max. At least he used some fresh lubrication this time, but Max can feel each lump on Joe’s cock as it slides back and forth within him, and he can barely stomach it. Again Joe cums deep inside Max, kissing his neck as he does, then holds himself inside him for agonizingly long minutes before he finally lifts himself up and pulls out. He always leaves Max shaking in the aftermath of his rape, feeling filthy just for having Joe’s seed inside him, and becoming increasingly fearful that he may end up carrying this man’s child.  
  
After the third day the Organic Mechanic starts collecting his urine in small sample jars, Max guesses to test for pregnancy.  
  
Every time the Organic Mechanic leaves him free to move for a little while, Max tries to get loose, but just doesn’t have the ability to break or slip any of his bonds. Even when Joe has him bathed and shaved every few days, the Organic Mechanic makes sure Max never gets fully unchained, and there are always enough Warboys to control him. Max won’t give up, won’t let them break him, but he starts to lose hope that he’ll ever get out of here.  
  
The routine continues.  
  
Sometimes Joe has him chained on his front, his knees folded under him but still spread wide so he can easily fuck him from behind. At least this way Max can keep his face buried in the bed and let the tears fall without Joe seeing them. Max hates what he’s been reduced to, a pet, a toy… Not even that. A body to fuck, a set of breeding parts to grow a child. He’s worth no more than his body’s biology.  
  
Max won’t tell Joe his name when he asks, won’t even speak a single word to him, so Joe names him Feist, and calls it out sometimes when he cums.  
  
The days pass slower and slower, and start to blur together. Max has lost track of how many times Joe has come to breed him; he doesn’t know anymore how long he’s been here.   
  
The warlord isn’t just playing around. Even if he pleasures himself some other way than in Max’s cunt, he always makes sure he’s deep inside him when he cums, sometimes shoving in with a sharp, painful jab at the last minute before he shoots his load into him. Max doesn’t know which would be worse, being trapped here and continuing to be raped daily, or having it stop only to find out he’s pregnant with the man’s child.  
  
But it’s worse than he even imagined.  
  
Joe comes in and has Max chained down as usual one day, but instead of stripping his clothes off as soon as the Warboys leave, he approaches Max and reaches down to caress his stomach with a smile in his eyes. “Congratulations. You now carry my child.”`  
  
Max stares in shock and lies silent and numb for a long moment. He hopes Joe is lying to him just to torment him, but as Joe sits down on the edge of the bed beside him, his hand still rubbing circles over Max’s stomach almost lovingly, Max knows that he’s speaking the truth. The Organic Mechanic must have finally gotten a positive test.  
  
Max explodes with all his rage, thrashing and straining against his chains as he screams out. Joe quickly stands up from the bed and stays back for long minutes until Max has worn himself out and falls still. He can’t stop Joe from seeing him cry this time, and he shakes with tears and quiet sobs.  
  
Joe sits down by his head and pets his hair. “Still going to fight me over this, hm?”  
  
Max glares up at him over the bars of his muzzle, even as the tears continue to flow from his eyes. Max will fight this until it kills him.  
  
Joe smiles. “I’ll teach you better.”  
  
Max thought at least he would be free from the rape sessions now, but Joe fucks him anyway, telling Max admonishingly that it’s his own fault for behaving as he did. He should be happy to be bringing Joe’s child into the world.  
  
“I may not need to impregnate you anymore, but I’m going to continue to take my pleasure from you until you mellow and accept the gracious gifts I am giving you.”  
  
Max keeps fighting him, but each night, Joe comes back to rape Max again, getting angrier at Max’s behavior by the day. On the sixth night after the announcement of Max’s pregnancy, as Max fights him with the same determination as always, Joe’s true motivations show. He fucks into Max’s cunt with a violent frenzy and hisses in his ear, “I’m going to take your pussy until you break. Do you hear me? I won’t stop until I’ve tamed you.” Max snarls and tries to headbutt him, but Joe pulls away just in time, and slams his hips hard against Max’s to drive his point home. He holds himself deep inside him as Max fights but is unable to save himself.  
  
Max’s whole body aches after Joe is done with him that night.  
  
As time passes, Joe’s visits become less frequent, though he never leaves Max alone for too long. Max treasures the days that Joe doesn’t have time for him. Even if he is still chained to a bed and his stomach is slowly growing larger with the child inside it, he takes what small escapes he can get.   
  
*****  
  
Joe makes sure to take his newest wife as regularly as he can, though he can’t manage every day anymore. It was difficult for him to keep up when he was trying to impregnate her, although he did enjoy it. For a while after she conceives, he thinks that if he continues to do it enough, his precious Feist must eventually break and give in to him. Surely the pregnancy will calm her down at the very least. But his newest wife seems to only grow more feral, more angry, no matter what Joe does.  
  
Eventually it becomes less about breaking Feist, and more about habit and the pleasure he gets from having power over such a fierce creature. It also serves as a reminder to his wife that he owns her, because that seems to be a point she doesn’t understand. His other wives at least know to obey him when he orders them to do something, even if he can tell they don’t want to. He would like to put Feist in the vault with his other wives, in hopes that they might soften her and teach her, but doesn’t dare do so while she’s still so wild and violent.  
  
So he settles for fucking her, even as her pregnancy grows, doubting now that she’ll ever give in, but refusing to let go of the power he still holds over her. Normally he leaves his wives alone after they finally conceive, not wanting to risk damaging them or the precious child inside, but he’s learned with Feist that he quite enjoys pregnant sex. He loves feeling her round belly as he enters her. Knowing he’s already won over her makes his orgasms all the better.  
  
He’s still careful, though. She may be strong and wild, but she still carries precious cargo. The more pregnant she gets, the more careful he is with her pussy when he fucks it. When he’s feeling rough, though, or she’s done something that requires punishment or a lesson, he has her flipped over onto her knees and elbows and he fucks her ass as hard as he likes. Even with the voice of a man, he secretly loves her cries of pain, loves how helpless she is to stop him from taking what is his. He presses his hands to her bulging stomach and slams into her tight ass until she’s exhausted and her fight is gone, at least for this night.  
  
*****  
  
Max will never show it, but he comes close to breaking several times. His pregnancy is fucking with his mind, probably both from his own dysphoria over it, and the mess of unfamiliar hormones it has been dumping into his body. He swings between wild emotions, sometimes sobbing, sometimes raging, sometimes numb and motionless as he waits helplessly for Joe to come back and use him again. He never stops fighting against Joe’s mistreatment of him, but as the months pass and his belly gets bigger, he loses all hope. If he had been able to escape earlier in his pregnancy, he could have ended it, but now he’s so big that he’s sure he’d have to carry it out, even if he had a choice.  
  
He never lets Joe see him cry, not since his pregnancy was announced, but it gets harder with each passing day.


	3. Chapter 3

Furiosa had been resistant, at first, to the girls trying to get her sympathy after Joe had assigned her to the vault to protect them. It was too painful being back in here, and she couldn’t risk breaking her cover and showing that. She realizes, though, that if she wants to hurt Joe, she has just been handed the best way to do it. He took her freedom, her childhood, her happy life. She’ll take his treasures, his future.  
  
She plans with the women secretly for months, teaches them things they’ll need to know out there, and reminds them that they have to wait for the best opportunity. They will get out of here, but they can’t rush it.  
  
When she’s given the rig, that opportunity becomes clear. She thinks she has it all figured out, until a rumor reaches her that throws a wrench into all of it. A sixth wife.  
  
The news comes through Miss Giddy, her only contact between herself and the wives now that she’s no longer assigned to the vault. Joe had been in a particularly good mood the other night, and had let slip that he has three potential heirs on the way. The women know that only Dag and Angharad are actually pregnant, so where could the third be?  
  
“We don’t know why she’s not in the vault, but he must be hiding her somewhere. Please, find her,” Miss Giddy begs before they quickly part ways, always careful that nobody sees them talking.  
  
Furiosa swears under her breath. It wouldn’t break her heart to leave this one behind. She doesn’t know this one, hasn’t sympathized with her. She’s disconnected enough that she could move on and not look back. It would increase all their chances of making this work. But she reminds herself that her goal is to hurt Joe as badly as she can, and if she leaves him with even a single wife pregnant with an heir, she has failed.  
  
She goes looking for more information. The Warboys that serve the Immortan directly are tight-lipped, but respect and trust her enough to let tidbits slip. The woman’s feral and crazy. He’s got her locked away somewhere safe.  
  
She puts every moment she can safely spare into trying to find out where. When she can, she’ll discreetly follow Joe, to see if he goes to her, but as he ventures into emptier hallways, it becomes too risky, and she can’t break her cover.  
  
She does learn, however, that every few days, he heads to one specific part of the larger tower with a few Warboys, an area she was sure was unused and empty. She waits until she knows he’s busy with something else, and goes there herself.  
  
The place is deadly quiet, and all the rooms she checks are empty, but it’s a large area, and she can’t give up until she’s checked everywhere. It takes longer than she thought, and the day they plan to escape in the rig looms ever nearer. Frustrated and growing desperate, she searches seemingly endless tunnels and room after room, but can only explore the area in short shifts, so nobody notices her missing for too long. She can’t go at night, as she knows Joe likes to be with his wives some nights, but she makes time between her other duties, and early on mornings when she knows Joe is in his rooms.  
  
Finally she finds a locked door. This must be it. Everything else here is empty and abandoned, the rooms cleaned out of anything usable. There’s no other reason this door would be locked, unless Joe has something precious within.  
  
She fashions some lock picks, and the next opportunity she gets that’s safe, she goes back up. It takes her a while to pick the door open. She’s not an expert at this, but finally it clicks and the knob turns, and she opens it carefully and peers inside.  
  
The room is dim, lit by a single small window, but she instantly spots the bed and its single occupant, her bare, bulging stomach immediately recognizable. Furiosa hurries in and closes the door behind her, locking it just to be safe. The captive wife doesn’t get up, and Furiosa freezes as she gets nearer. The pregnant belly and exposed sex attest to this person being a woman, but the rest of the body looks distinctly male, thick and well-muscled, with a flat chest, and most notably, traces of a few days of beard growth under the muzzle. She shakes off her surprise and steps forward slowly. She has obviously found Joe’s pregnant sixth wife, no matter how strange she looks, and she has to keep to the plan.  
  
The wife looks at her with wild, distrustful eyes. She’s heavily chained, her limbs shackled and her body pressed hard into the bed and unable to move. Furiosa is disgusted by the way Joe treats people, and she drops to her knees beside the bed and reaches out with her living arm to the captive’s forehead. The wife flinches away fearfully with a low grunt.  
  
“Hey, hey,” Furiosa says as gently as she can, pulling her hand away. “I’m not going to hurt you.”  
  
The eyes staring back at her look no less fearful, nor even understanding of her words.  
  
Furiosa glances at the door. She can’t stay here long. “I’m sorry, I can’t release you right now. Nobody can know I was here. Do you understand that? Nobody can know.” She stares in the wife’s eyes, looking for some sign of understanding. There’s no change in the expression staring back at her, and Furiosa no longer doubts the rumors that this wife is feral and possibly crazy. But it doesn’t matter. She won’t just leave her here to Joe’s mercies and to birth one of his children.  
  
“You’re not alone,” Furiosa continues in a low voice. She has a feeling this person does understand, on some level. “There are others like you. Others he holds captive and… forces himself on.”  
  
The eyes flinch away, like the thought hurts, the first sign of understanding Furiosa has seen.  
  
“I’m going to get them out. We’re going somewhere safe.”  
  
The eyes turn back to her suddenly, sharp and searching.  
  
“And I’m taking you with us,” Furiosa continues. “I’ll get you out of here. Not yet, but soon. Be ready.”  
  
She finally gets the faintest nod from the wife, and she returns it, then stands up and slips back through the door, carefully relocking it with her lock picks before she hurries away. She hates to just leave the wife like that, chained so tightly to the bed, in pain and alone, but they’re so close to getting out. She can’t take any risks.  
  
That muzzled face and those fearful eyes return to her over the next few days, haunting and uncomfortable. Everything about that person was so… male, with the exception of the pregnancy and female anatomy down below. But when she was just looking at her face, she could easily have slipped and called the wife a he.  
  
She fights the thoughts away over and over again. It doesn’t matter. Joe is using her just as badly as he’s using the others. Maybe worse. The fact that she is still naked and chained says he’s probably still fucking her, Furiosa thinks with a shudder.   
  
Maybe the sixth wife is a man who can somehow get pregnant. She wouldn’t put it past Joe to take advantage of such a person. Maybe the sixth wife is a woman who for some reason looks like a man and can grow a beard. She doesn’t know. But they’re all getting out of here. That’s all that matters.  
  
She sets her mind to revising her plan. She’ll get the other women out first and hide them in the rig. They already know the best time to do that. She’ll just have to figure out how to sneak past guards and get to the sixth wife after that.


	4. Chapter 4

After the Imperator woman with the metal arm leaves, Max’s mind races with the possibilities of getting out of here. He hasn’t let himself think about the fate of the child growing in his womb. Up until now, it hasn’t been in his hands. He knows if Joe gets what he wants from Max, if Max births a healthy boy, the child will be taken, and if Max is lucky, he will be discarded. Max has started hoping it’s a boy. It’s not that he wants Joe to get what he wants, but maybe if he does, Max will be free of this.  
  
But if Max can go free now, suddenly the child becomes his responsibility. What will he do with it? What should become of a child he knows he can’t care for? He shakes his head. He’ll see where he ends up. He’ll make that decision if the child even survives.  
  
But he, at least, will be free. If that woman is to be trusted, if she even can be trusted, being one of Joe’s ranking officers… if she has a way to get them out without being caught, Max will be a free man again, and what happens to his body will be his own choice, not some other man’s.   
  
The days pass even more slowly than they did before. Joe comes to rape him again, and Max hopes it’ll be the last time. Two more days pass, and Joe comes again to fuck his ass until Max is moaning in pain. Four more days. Joe is in a good mood the next time and coos over Max as he caresses his stomach and uses his cunt in soft, shallow thrusts.  
  
Max starts to sink back into his depression.  
  
He always sleeps in short bursts, never able to stay asleep long. Nightmares of his past still plague him, sometimes his body hurts from Joe’s bouts of pleasure, and it’s almost always in discomfort or pain because of his pregnancy. He can’t shift or roll over when he’s chained this tightly, so he has no choice but to suffer through it and lose sleep because of it. Sometimes it’s his child. The baby kicks and moves within him now, and the feeling makes Max feel sick, or jolts him from his rest.  
  
He’s awake when the door to his room opens unexpectedly. Joe was just here a few hours ago to fuck him, he doesn’t expect him back so soon. He cranes his head up to look past his pregnant belly as the woman who had come to him before steps in quietly and closes the door behind her. A thrill flutters through Max’s stomach, but he realizes he is also afraid. What if she’s lying? What if there’s something worse in store for him down this path? He chases the thought away. Even death or gang rape at the hands of the Warboys couldn’t be as bad as this.  
  
He’ll go with her, but she hasn’t quite earned his trust yet. If he sees a better option, if she does anything to put his freedom at risk, he’ll make his own move, take his life back into his own hands again.  
  
“We have to hurry,” she says as she drops some clothing she had over her arm and pulls a small key out of a pouch. She kneels down and looks in his face. “If we’re going to do this, you have to stay quiet. You have to follow me, and do as I say. You understand? If you mess this up, we get no more chances.”  
  
Max blinks and nods quietly. She nods back, and Max watches warily but hopefully as she unlocks his chains one by one. She frees his legs, then his arms and his body, then helps him sit up and tries to unlock the muzzle from around his face.  
  
“Shit.” The key jiggles in the lock but doesn’t turn it. “Must be one of the Organic’s locks,” she says. “I don’t have a key for it.”  
  
She unlocks the other end of the chain on his muzzle from the bed, telling him they’ll get the muzzle off later, but they have to move now. Max wiggles into the clothing she brought him, struggling to close the trousers low on his hips, and yanking down the shirt to cover his stomach. Furiosa is struck again, now that he’s dressed, how Joe’s latest wife is so much like a man, despite the bulge of his belly.  
  
He seems wary of her, and she is wary of him, as they duck out of the room and she leads him toward the rig where the others are hiding. She keeps a careful eye on him, aware that if he really is feral, he could go wild in an instant. She’s prepared to fight him, to knock him out and carry him if she has to to get him out of here quietly. But he seems to understand that she’s helping him, and he follows her instructions automatically when she tells him to hide quickly as someone passes by, or to wait for her to make sure the way is clear.  
  
When they reach the rig, she knows their window of opportunity is small before someone still awake at this hour might come by and spot them, and she shoves him quickly to the tanker. He resists at first, surprised by the contact.  
  
“Under there,” she hisses, pointing to the hatch under the tanker. “Climb in and stay quiet so nobody finds you. We leave in the morning.”  
  
Max hesitates, but crawls under the tanker and climbs up into the dark hatch. She helps push him up as he struggles to get his weakened, pregnant body inside, and then she slides the hatch closed and is gone.  
  
Max is suddenly aware of breathing in the compartment with him, and he scrambles back, looking around fearfully as his eyes adjust to the near complete darkness.  
  
“It’s okay,” a quiet voice says out of the darkness. “Don’t be afraid.”  
  
“You’re Joe’s other wife?” Another voice speaks up. Max doesn’t say a word. His eyes gradually adjust, and he sees the shapes of five women sitting against the wall on the other side of the hatch, nestled amongst produce. He can’t make out their faces very well, but he can feel that all five are looking at him. He shrinks back uncomfortably and curls up around himself in the corner of the tanker.  
  
“What’s your name?” the first one murmurs. “My name’s Angharad.”  
  
“Capable,” another says.  
  
“I’m the Dag.”  
  
“Cheedo.”  
  
“Toast.”  
  
There’s a long silence. Max doesn’t answer.  
  
“She’s still afraid,” the quietest one whispers.  
  
“Can you blame her? With how Joe’s been treating her…”  
  
“Furiosa said she was feral.”  
  
“She’s not some animal, she’s just frightened.”  
  
Max shifts uncomfortably where he’s crouched. “Not a she,” he finally says, his voice rough with disuse.  
  
The women go silent.  
  
“What?” one finally asks after a long moment.  
  
“I’m not a she,” Max repeats, slower this time.  
  
“Furiosa said you were a wife,” one says, not understanding.  
  
“But you’re pregnant, I saw when you climbed up,” another argues at almost the same time.   
  
“Certainly has a man’s voice,” the one on the end concedes, sounding a little surprised.  
  
The quiet one is sounding panicked. “Why did Furiosa bring a man, why did-“  
  
The one who had spoken to Max first shushes them all quietly. “Furiosa risked herself to bring him here, just like us. Either he can help us, or he needs help himself. Nothing else matters.”  
  
“How are you pregnant?” the one who had commented on his voice says anyway.  
  
Max is quiet again. He curls up a little tighter and stares at his own feet. The women go quiet as well.  
  
Max is afraid but exhausted, and for the first time in months, he can lie down in a position that is comfortable to him. It takes him a while to find that position in the tight tanker, but he eventually does, and he tries to get some sleep.  
  
He awakes in terror, his ghosts screaming at him to run, hands touching his body. He strikes out, but pulls his punch at the last moment, the woman in front of him flinching away reflexively, her hand over her pregnant belly. Max scrambles back instead, and she instantly follows with him, her hand up near his face.  
  
“Shh, shh, you have to stay quiet,” she whispers urgently. He must have been making noise in his sleep. “They’ll find us if they hear you.”  
  
Max freezes and listens. He doesn’t hear any footsteps coming, at least, and he releases a slow breath. His fearful eyes meet hers. She calms her expression and nods carefully, then pulls her hand back away from him, and when Max makes no other noise, she sits down next to him. Max tries not to flinch away.   
  
“What’s your name?” she asks in a low voice for the second time.  
  
Max looks at her then away again. He’s glad she’s not asking about his pregnancy like the other one, but his name is the one thing he’s kept safe this long. The one part of him that is still his. “He calls me Feist,” he finally says instead, hoping she’ll take the answer and leave him alone.  
  
“That’s not your name,” she says forcefully, maybe a little too loudly, and Max does twitch away this time. “Don’t let him own you like that.”  
  
“We’re not his property,” another one says from across the tanker.  
  
Max is silent again.   
  
The one next to him starts to put her hand on his shoulder, but as he twitches again, she thinks better of it and drops it. “You’re your own person, and we won’t call you the name he gave you. You don’t have to tell us, but we hope you will some day.” She stands up slowly and goes back to the others on the other side of the tanker. Max lets her words sink in. He hasn’t felt like his own person in far too long.  
  
Max doesn’t let himself sleep again. He guesses it’s only a few hours until morning, and he can’t risk fucking this up with another nightmare.  
  
Those few hours feel like days, crouching silently in the darkness, wondering if this plan will work, if they’ll be able to go free, or if they’ll be caught in the act and forced back to that life. Max knows that he, at least, will be punished, and he’ll fight to the death before he’ll let himself be dragged back there.   
  
There’s a hatch beside him on the front of the tanker he hadn’t noticed before, and he watches the light coming in around its edges gradually brighten. He doesn’t look at the other women. Finally voices and footsteps start to sound around the tanker, and Max hunkers low and hopes they won’t find them.  
  
The tanker moves. Footsteps pound above them, and Warboys chant. Max tries to guess what’s happening out there, tries to keep track of how many he can hear outside, how many he’ll have to fight off if they’re discovered.  
  
He feels the clunk of the tanker hooking onto the truck that will tow it, and a couple minutes later, their hiding place starts rocking and vibrating as the truck tows them away. Max finds himself breathing a little easier. It might not be over yet, but at least they are actually leaving this horrible place.  
  
The women could speak freely now that the truck is moving. Nobody would be able to hear their voices inside over the sound of the engines and the road, but none of them says a word. It’s not long before it becomes clear that something has gone wrong. The tanker lurches to the side and back again. Warboys yell above them, explosions sound around them. Is Joe upon them already? Max’s muscles buzz with the desire to fight, but he knows his place in this plan, and it’s to stay put.  
  
Dust filters up through the edges of the hatches, the air becomes thick and hard to breathe. They all start coughing, trying to get air, and even as the battle continues on around them, the pregnant one flings open the hatch in front and crawls out before anyone can stop her. Max shoves himself harder into the corner he’s in, but stays ready to leap out of it in an instant. He’ll kill anybody who comes in that hatch, unless it’s her.  
  
It only gets worse. The Imperator drives them straight into a dust storm. He doesn’t know if that was the plan or something else went wrong, but it almost kills them back there, and they’re all left covering their faces with whatever cloth they can, gasping for air and coughing out dust. The wind rages around them, the tanker lurches some more.  
  
It takes a while for Max to realize it when the tanker has stopped moving. The wind still rocks it back and forth and blasts them with sand, but the engines must have suffocated under all the dust. They sit and wait.  
  
Eventually it’s still and quiet, but still none of them move, until they hear the creak of the cab door opening and closing again, and the women cautiously climb out of the hatch in the bottom, one by one. Max stays frozen in place, and listens to the sounds outside.  
  
There’s banging that makes him flinch, and the sound of a motor trying to start and choking again. It’s the sound of water that finally brings him out of hiding. He lowers himself slowly through the hatch and moves out from under the tanker.  
  
The women have a hose hooked up to the tanker, and are washing themselves off with the water that flows freely from it. Max stares, wide-eyed. He glances around at them, seeing them clearly for the first time, but his eyes go back to the water. He steps forward, focused only on it.  
  
The pregnant one, Angharad, who looks about as far along in her pregnancy as he, looks up as she sees him step closer, and all the other women stop to look at him too. Max freezes. He can feel them scrutinizing him, trying to figure him out. He looks male, but he’s clearly pregnant. Max hardly cares right now, he’s so thirsty.   
  
He lifts a hand and points at the hose. “Water,” he grunts out. Angharad brings it to him, but the others keep staring. He thrusts the hose against his muzzle, turns on the water, and gulps down as much as he can, not caring that he’s wasting so much as it flows down his front, soaking his clothes. Finally he turns it off and offers it back to her. He has no need to wash the dust off himself. After months of being kept soft and clean on that damn bed, a bit of grit almost feels good.  
  
He looks cautiously around at the women still staring at him, and scowls.  
  
The one with long white hair finishes cutting a chastity belt off the youngest one, then moves toward him with the large pair of boltcutters. “Here, let me get that off your face,” she offers. Max flinches away, feeling threatened as she brings the heavy tool up near his head. They’ve treated him well so far, but he still doesn’t fully trust them. He doesn’t know where he is, is dependent on these people to save him, and he doesn’t like it. He growls as she tries to reach the lock at the back of his neck again, and he backs away from her quickly, fear in his eyes. She lowers the boltcutters, looking confused. The one who had freed them from the Citadel steps toward him carefully, holding up her one and a half arms in front of her, the prosthesis gone, trying to calm him. Max steps back toward the rear of the tanker, distancing himself from them warily.  
  
He spins as he hears a noise behind him, just as a Warboy steps around the back of the fuel pod, a sawed-off shotgun aimed at Max. He looks like he fully intends to shoot Max, but his eyes dart down to Max’s stomach, and then up to his face, confused. Max lunges, going in for the attack with a ferocity he hasn’t been able to act on in months. He realizes as he wrenches the weapon out of the Warboy’s hand and grabs him by the jacket he’s wearing, that it’s Max’s own jacket. The same one they took from him when they captured and stripped him. He slams his fist into the Warboy’s chest, sending him to the ground with little resistance.  
  
Furiosa rushes forward to help, but the fight is over as quickly as it began, and she skids to a stop, watching the nameless man strip the jacket off of the Warboy he just took down, mumbling something she can’t make out in a deep, angry growl. His pregnancy doesn’t seem to be impeding him all that much, she realizes.  
  
As Max puts his reclaimed jacket on, an electric guitar rages in the distance, and he squints at the horizon.  
  
“Come on, we have to go,” Furiosa says commandingly. The women all turn and hurry with her to the truck, and Max follows, reluctant to depend on them but not wanting to be left behind.  
  
The wives all climb in the back seat of the cab, and Max hesitates. He’s not comfortable being that close. The Imperator pauses, looking him over like she’s reading him. She motions up to the front door as she pulls her arm off the side of the truck and straps it on. Max scrambles inside and across to the passenger seat. He sits down heavily and his eyes dart around fearfully. The women try not to stare now, but he knows he is a strange sight. Reflexively, he snatches a gun he spots on the ceiling of the cab, and holds it close to his body. The Imperator freezes as she’s climbing in and looks at him distrustfully. He returns the look, but makes no move to attack, so she sits down carefully and starts the truck, watching him out of the corner of her eye.  
  
She notices him fidgeting with the muzzle as they drive away, and slowly reaches down beside her. Max’s hackles rise as she grabs something, but she just as slowly holds the object out to him, glancing from the road to his face. It’s a metal file. He grabs it out of her hand and instantly puts it to use on his muzzle.  
  
*****  
  
Over the next few hours, Max proves himself to the Imperator to be a reliable, worthy ally. He’s not some delicate flower, weakened by his pregnancy and in need of saving. He can fight, he can shoot, he can drive, he can defend himself. If they’re going to get through this, they’re going to get through it together, and Max realizes, as they fight to get away from the war parties, just how much the Imperator has put on the line for this as well.  
  
He fixes the dragging fuel pod. When Furiosa’s deal goes bad, he drives the rig out of the canyon as fast as he can, just as she asked of him. He hands her guns, shoots alongside her, does his best to keep them ahead of the furious warlord hot on their heels.  
  
When Angharad falls from the rig after helping to cut the chain that had his hand pinned, he almost goes numb. His body keeps driving, but his mind is barely there. He knows first-hand the fate she’s going back to if she survives, and part of him pulls to save her from that. But another refuses to turn around, refuses to go anywhere near the rapist behind them. His sense of reason agrees: if they turn around, it’s all over. He keeps driving.  
  
He keeps himself separate from the other wives. They remind him too much of what he had become, what he had never wanted to be: a woman used for her body’s ability to bear children. Furiosa reminds him of what he had always been before he was captured, what he had always felt was right for him: a fighter, a road warrior. He has nothing against the other women, but he feels more comfortable with her. And she quickly learns to respect him, to not treat him carefully just because he has a child growing within him. She doesn’t try to stop him from putting his child’s life at risk to go after their attackers or for doing whatever he has to do to make it through a fight. She understands as well as he does that they are all putting their own lives at risk here. It’s a tough world, and you have to be tough to keep up with it.  
  
He finally lets himself sleep a little more as dawn breaks after they’ve made it through the bog. He doesn’t make it long before he’s jolting awake again, images of his own unborn baby mixing in his mind with horrors of the past, of people who have died because of him, and of a grotesque man salivating over the chance to fuck him pregnant.  
  
The Imperator looks over at him as she drives. “It’s okay,” she says quietly. “Sleep. Get some rest.”  
  
Max leans back into his seat, but his heart’s beating too fast. He looks out the window, scanning their surroundings as he tries to chase the nightmares out of his head. His baby kicks in his stomach, and he tries to ignore it. It’s just sand around them, he notices. Endless desert. She had said this Green Place they were heading toward was a long night’s run, and the long night is past. “How do you know this place even exists?”  
  
She hesitates. “I was born there.”  
  
Max blinks. If it’s such a paradise, why wouldn’t she still be there? “Why’d you leave?”  
  
“I didn’t. I was taken as a child. Stolen.”  
  
Max leans back again, taking in the information. She’s been away from her home for this long, must have waited years for her chance to get back. He can’t help but feel that she could have snuck away herself much more easily than the way she actually did this. Taking Joe’s precious wives with her was practically baiting the warlord to chase after her. She needed more than just to get away. She needed to do right by some moral standing that was all too uncommon these days. That, or she needed revenge.  
  
“He hurt you? Joe?” Max ventures.   
  
Furiosa is silent for a long span. “Yeah.”  
  
Max grunts. He thought so. Joe hurt everyone here, even the Warboy now sleeping in back with the girls. Max flinches suddenly and puts his hand to his stomach as his baby kicks hard. Furiosa looks over at his movement, fearful that something is wrong, but Max just shakes his head and leans back again with a sigh. He sees her take her eyes off the road to glance at him several times in a minute, and he sits up and catches her eye as she does it again. “Just ask,” he growls quietly.  
  
Furiosa hesitates a minute, trying different options in her head, but it’s not a question that can be asked with a lot of subtlety. “How?”  
  
“He fucked me,” Max growls in response. Furiosa’s jaw tightens and she looks back at the road, her shoulders held tense. Max sighs and puts his feet up on the dashboard in front of him. He hadn’t meant to get passive-aggressive about it. “I wasn’t born a man,” he admits after a minute in a low voice, barely louder than the sound of the engines. “But I always felt like one, so I turned myself into one, much as I could.”  
  
Furiosa pulls her gaze away from the road and meets his eyes for a long moment. Max glances away first. He doesn’t know if she could possibly understand, but she’s trying.  
  
“Guess that didn’t matter to him when they found me out.” He puts both arms over his stomach and stares down at it as the child kicks again.  
  
Furiosa does have to admit that at this point Joe would probably fuck anybody that could give him a suitable heir. A man who used to be a woman isn’t that much of a stretch for him. She glances over at the nameless man in the passenger seat of her rig again as he stares down at his pregnant stomach with a sad, helpless expression.  
  
“There are people at the Green Place,” she says, looking back at the road, “who can help you with your child. You don’t have to go through it alone. Whatever help you need, it’s yours.”  
  
Max looks up at her for a moment, then lets his eyes drift back down to his stomach. He won’t tell her that he doesn’t want to birth this child at all, but he thinks maybe she knows.


	5. Chapter 5

After they learn that the Green Place is gone, Max feels dread creep into his mind again. He had hoped it was still there, though part of him knew it wasn’t likely. A place like that simply can’t last in a world like this. He hadn’t really wanted to stay amongst people, but couldn’t deny that the offer of help with his condition was tempting. He could go off and do this alone, but he knows it’s not a good idea. Not for the child, and not for himself.  
  
Some of Furiosa’s people still remain, at least, and maybe that’s better than nothing. They take the other women under their wings, shower them with clothing and gifts, but Max keeps himself separate again, unsure and uncomfortable.  
  
He’s a little grateful for the distraction from this own thoughts when Furiosa comes to talk to him.   
  
“I’ve talked with the others. This is the best shot we’re going to have to make it across the salt. If we leave the rig here and load the motorcycles up with as much as we can, we can maybe ride for 160 days. One of those bikes is yours. Fully loaded. You’re more than welcome to come with us.”  
  
Max looks from the salt plains in front of them to Furiosa. She’s giving him a choice, the freedom to pick his own path, and he’s grateful. The desire to make his own way pulls at him painfully, but he knows it’s not safe or smart or sane. They haven’t seen any sign of the war parties for a full day, but that doesn’t mean they’re not still after them, and Max is a prime target. He also has no idea how much longer it’ll be before this baby is born. As much as he hates to admit it, he’s not fit for life on his own right now. He’ll stay with them, but only until his child is born, he tells himself. Then he’ll go his own way.  
  
Max gives her a nod. “I’m with you.”  
  
Furiosa gives a small, relieved smile and nods in return, then turns to leave him alone again.  
  
Over the next hour or so, Max almost goes to join some of the others, but he’s not quite ready for that yet. He can sense the old women staring at him, too, and he hates it, but it just reminds him of why he can’t leave yet. A pregnant man is always going to get unwanted attention. It’s not safe on his own.  
  
The Valkyrie is the first to approach him. He glances over at her as she steps up slowly and crouches down beside where he’s sitting. They share a brief look, not quite a greeting, but an acknowledgement. She glances briefly at his stomach, and Max tenses, preparing for the questions.  
  
“You don’t want it.” It’s not a question that finally comes out of her mouth, and he wonders how she knows.   
  
Max looks at her, then down at his stomach. “…No.”  
  
She nods, another acknowledgement.  
  
“Don’t want to kill it either,” Max admits for the first time. “Not… not anymore, at least.” He fiddles uncomfortably with his hands. He had wanted it dead at first. He wanted nothing to do with it, and would have ended it early if he could have. But now he’s so far along that it feels too late to turn back. He doesn’t want the child dead, and in fact part of him even yearns to know and love and hold his child. But he knows he couldn’t handle that when it came down to it. There’s too many bad emotions associated with this whole thing, and he’s too unstable, his life’s too dangerous for a child. “Just… ‘M not father material,” he says simply.  
  
There’s no doubt that he hates the child’s father, and he fears that every time he would look at it, it’ll remind him of Joe. But he knows once the child is born, he couldn’t leave it to die just because of that. Maybe he can find someone else to take it. Maybe these women would be willing to raise it, to take it as their own and teach it their ways. He would be happy with that, he’d be at peace knowing his child had mothers like these. They could give it what he couldn’t.  
  
“I just wanted you to know,” Valkyrie says gently, “that you don’t have to do this on your own. We’re here for you now.”  
  
Max nods with a quiet sound. This must be her way of making sure he’s been taken under their wings too. He almost feels coddled, and part of him wants to growl at her for it, but at the same time… It’s nice to have support. The coming month or so will probably be the hardest he’s known in many years.  
  
*****  
  
The next morning they pack up the bikes and ride out. Riding a motorcycle pregnant turns out to be even more unpleasant than he had anticipated, but he’s not about to let himself be driven around in one of the side cars, so he bites his lip, holds himself off the seat slightly, and bears it. Driving his own bike relaxes him, at least. He feels in control of his life, at least in some small way, and the vibration of the motor beneath him makes him feel free in a way he had long forgotten. His mind clears, and he thinks about their next steps. They have no real plan. They’re still on the run, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the war parties as they can, relying on a simple hope that there’s something out there for them past the salt. Max knows there isn’t, but what other choice do they have?  
  
A foreboding sense starts to rise in his stomach. They have everything they need to live for quite a while out here, but when that runs out, then what? He knows they won’t find more, there are no settlements out there, nothing. Are they running now just so they can lie down and die later? Better to die free than live captive, in his opinion, but his instinct to survive growls in the back of his mind. It might even be mixed with some half-smothered motherly instinct to protect his child, but he tries not to think about that. In any case, it surges over him like a wave, and he shudders and swerves a bit. This is the wrong choice. They’re just going to die out here.  
  
He guns his bike and pulls ahead of Furiosa. She glances over at him, and slows as he meets her eyes. He pulls diagonally in front of her as they all stop, kicks the stand on his bike, and climbs off. Furiosa pulls her goggles up and waits for him.  
  
“Alright,” he says, pulling out the map with the blood-red symbol of the Citadel painted into the middle of it and laying it across her gas tank. “This is your way home.” He taps the Citadel with his finger.  
  
“We go back?”   
  
“Mm.”   
  
“Back?” Someone else says.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I thought you weren’t insane anymore.”  
  
There’s a bit of argument, some reasonable discussion, but he presents his idea and eventually Furiosa clasps his hand in agreement to go back. None of them really want to. They’ve all got their fears, Max as much as any of them, but it’s a better chance than where they’re headed now. If they keep running, even if they survive, they’ll all always be looking over their shoulders, wondering if Joe will finally find them. But if they beat him at his own game, take the security of his fortress, maybe they can finally feel safe.   
  
*****  
  
Max really starts to feel his pregnancy weighing him down as he climbs across his third truck of the day. Adrenaline has kept him going so far, but he’s nearly died more times than he can keep track of, and for all he knows, he’s killed his child. His last glimpse of Furiosa scared another burst of adrenaline into his veins, and his only goal now is to get to her. She’s going to die, and he can’t let that happen. He watches her climb toward Joe’s car, and every fiber of his being needs to be there with her. He fights Warboys and a guitarist and a hulk of a man without a thought just to reach her, climbs and jumps and runs, not sure that his body will hold out, but not caring. When he finally gets onto Joe’s car, he barely manages to haul her up before they both collapse in the back.  
  
Even as Cheedo announces that Joe is dead and the others climb across from the rig, it takes Max a while to process it. His rapist is gone. He and his child will be safe from the life he was secretly afraid he was sending them both back to. They’ll all be safe from that life. For a moment, he feels freed in a new way, but it’s quickly forgotten as Furiosa goes weak in his arms, her breaths rattling in her chest.  
  
Nobody tries to stop him from giving her his blood after they’ve safely left the war parties behind, despite the risk to himself. He’d give his life and his child’s for her, though he does doubt the others would let him take it that far. He gives his name instead. She had asked for it before and he hadn’t told her, but if she’s going to die now, he wants her to go with every bit of him that he can give.  
  
He doesn’t relax until she’s back with him, and then, finally, nestled gently against her side, he lets himself sleep.  
  
*****  
  
Max didn’t get to kill Joe himself, but he accepts the risk of being the first one out of the car when they reach the Citadel, the first one to get shot if things go wrong, and he takes great pleasure in showing them what happened to their god, in kicking his ugly body to the ground for the masses to tear apart.   
  
They rise on the platform up into the Citadel’s tower, and Max feels another pull to go his own way, but he clenches his jaw and stays where he is, watching the water flow down to the people cheering below. He still needs help. He can’t do this on his own.  
  
It’s only after Furiosa is properly cared for and resting that one of the old women insists that Max get examined. He tries to refuse, insisting that he’s fine. He doesn’t want anybody touching his body, even someone friendly with his best interests in mind. She insists again, and physically hauls him to a secluded bed, telling him, “if you’ve killed that child, it could kill you as well. We didn’t come this far to let you die over something avoidable, so lie down and let me look.” He could overpower her, but he concedes and lies down hesitantly.  
  
She tells him everything she’s going to do before she does it, warns him of every touch, and he relaxes slightly. She feels his belly gently, listens for a long time, then prods some more, her face starting to crease with worry. “I don’t know,” she says, sitting back finally. “It’s too quiet, I don’t like it.”  
  
Max lets the thought sink in, that he may have killed his child. He won’t let himself regret fighting like he did. It’s likely that none of them would have made it if he hadn’t done his part, but he does feel a surprising twinge of pain at the thought. He chases the feeling away. He never wanted this child. Maybe it’s better if it died before its life truly started.  
  
He starts to push himself up, but pauses mid-way with a flinch and puts his hand to his belly. He shakes his head. “’S fine. Just kicked.”  
  
The Vuvalini gives a sigh of relief and grins at him warmly. Max doesn’t quite share the sentiment. He pushes himself the rest of the way up and grimaces as it kicks again, clearly alive and well.  
  
The Vuvalini speaks up. “Do you know how far along you are?”  
  
Max shakes his head. It was easy to lose track of time in the blur of horror and pain his life had been through most of his pregnancy.  
  
“We’ll keep a close watch then, just to be safe. I’d guess you’re no more than a month out.”  
  
Panic grasps him briefly at that. He’s not ready for this. It must show on his face, because she touches his arm gently.  
  
“You’ll get through this. I promise. And we’ll help in any way we can.”


	6. Chapter 6

As the days pass, the inevitable birth of his child growing closer and closer, he gets more agitated, more nervous, more prone to swings of mood and unexpected breakdowns. He spends a lot of time by Furiosa’s side as she heals, and she becomes his support. He won’t let any of the others see how fragile he is, but her he trusts.  
  
She combs her fingers through his short hair as he sobs against the side of her bed one day, crouched on the floor, until he quiets down into hiccups, and then into silence.  
  
“I can’t do it,” he admits after a lengthy silence.  
  
“You can.”  
  
He shakes his head, and her hand cups his chin gently and lifts his head toward her. She stares him in the eye, and he almost flinches away.  
  
“You can,” she repeats, and raises her brows, challenging him to argue. “You’re tough. And I’ll be there with you. We’ll manage.”  
  
Max feels the panic subside a little. He nods, sniffs, and lets his weight lean against the side of her bed again. Her fingers return to coming gently through his hair.  
  
*****  
  
He’s with her when his water breaks, sooner than any of them had expected, and he’s surprised about how calm he stays, despite the looming inevitability of what he’s been dreading for the last couple weeks.   
  
Furiosa has still been restricted to bedrest on a non-negotiable order by Anna, the Vuvalini woman who has become both her and Max’s diligent doctor, but she’s up on her feet in an instant to lead Max out of the room. “I’ll get the mothers, and find you a secluded room,” she tells him, and he wishes he could have her strength right now. “Do you want anybody else there?”  
  
Max shakes his head. “No.” He wants as few to see him like this as possible.  
  
Furiosa nods. The girls will be disappointed. She knows they wanted to be there for him, but ultimately it’s his decision.  
  
He’s soon lying on a bed in a room as far from anyone else’s as they can find, with the three women around him moving about calmly but with purpose, gathering bowls of water, clean linens and towels, and some implements that make Max nervous, but they assure him are only there in case something goes wrong.  
  
The contractions are unpleasant and nauseating, and the long wait for him to be dilated enough is agonizing. When he starts sweating and slowly working his way to hyperventilating in fear, Furiosa is quickly beside him and grasps his hand. He clings to her, to her strength and calmness.  
  
She wipes the sweat from his forehead. “We’ll get through this,” she assures him, and he nods weakly.  
  
The birthing process is even more excruciating than Max had thought it would be, and he screams and grits his teeth, but pushes when he’s told, breathes when he’s told, and Furiosa stays by him, holding his hand the entire time, not complaining when his grip tightens to the point of pain.  
  
He can’t tell for sure, but it feels like hours pass, and he falls back and tries to give up when he becomes completely exhausted. He doesn’t think he has the strength to continue.  
  
“No,” Furiosa says firmly, “you can’t stop now.” She squeezes his hand hard and leans over him to wrap her half-arm behind him and haul him back onto his elbows. “You’re stronger than this. Finish it.”  
  
Max squeezes his eyes shut and cries out as he gives another push, then another, and another.  
  
“Almost there,” Anna says below him just when he’s thinking of giving up again. “A couple more pushes!”  
  
He grits his teeth and focuses on Furiosa’s voice murmuring encouragement to him as he feels the baby move slowly through his birth canal.  
  
“One more!”  
  
He pushes with all his strength, feels the baby leave him, and collapses back onto the bed.   
  
The baby screams as Anna pulls it away, and a shot of pure terror stabs through Max at the sound.  
  
“It’s a girl,” she announces with a fond smile, but Max barely hears.   
  
Furiosa senses his panic instantly, and turns her attention back to him. She turns his face toward her as he starts to breathe in quick, shallow breaths. She stares in his eyes, trying to ground him. “Max, it’s okay. You’re okay. It’s over.”  
  
Max squeezes his eyes shut and grasps at her hand on the side of his face. He shakes his head faintly. “Can’t, I can’t…”  
  
The baby continues to cry as the other Vuvalini cuts and ties the cord and then fetches a soft blanket to wrap around her, and starts to bring her toward Max. Max’s whole body tenses even more, and he grasps at Furiosa’s hand hard enough that she has to force back a grimace. He’s gasping, barely getting enough air, shaking his head weakly.  
  
“Get her out of here,” Furiosa orders sharply to the woman starting to crouch beside her. “Quickly! Find someone who can feed her for now. He needs time.”  
  
The old woman looks a little hurt, but she nods and turns quickly, taking the baby out of the room, held close to her chest.  
  
Max starts breathing a little better only after the sound of the crying fades away, but he still shakes and grips Furiosa’s hand tightly.  
  
“Hey,” Furiosa says quietly. “Hey, it’s alright. You’ll be alright.”  
  
Max turns on his side, his hand still over hers on his face. He pulls his knees up and sobs quietly. Furiosa takes a quiet breath and settles in for the long haul, starting to stroke his hair gently with her half-arm, murmuring soft reassurances. She knew this would be tough on him, but didn’t expect that he would react this strongly. Whatever’s going on in his mind, it’s bad, and he’s probably going to need help coming out of it.  
  
*****  
  
Max stays bedridden for three days, and Furiosa stays nearby, at least when she’s not been ordered to lie down and rest herself. She hates being away from him, though, knowing how his clarity of mind comes and goes, and how the wrong nightmare can send him back into a panic now. Eventually she nudges him over on the bed and climbs in carefully next to him. She’s not sure at first how he’ll take it, not even sure if one of them won’t end up falling off the small mattress, but after a minute he rolls over to face her and curls into her, breathing her scent as his muscles relax.  
  
She’s gentle about it, but she asks each day if he wants to see his child, and he shakes his head sharply each time, his muscles going tense.  
  
He wasn’t prepared for the surge of emotion that hit him at the sound of that crying. He felt a certain brief joy, but it was drowned and stamped out by overwhelming terror and rage and shame.  
  
He was afraid because he wasn’t prepared to take care of a child. He was afraid he might hurt her. He was afraid that just looking at the child would bring back memories of Joe, of being raped day in and day out, of being chained to a bed as a child he resented grew inside him. He was afraid those feelings would affect his actions toward her. She was innocent of it all, she didn’t deserve a father who would resent her and possibly harm her, whether he meant to or not. And even if that didn’t happen, he was terrified of letting himself bond with a child that could die just like everyone else in his life.  
  
He was angry that Joe forced him to go through this, to birth a child Max never asked for. He was angry because the sick man had taken away months of his life, had taken his freedom and his agency, all for the sake of this child. He was angry that this world was sick enough to let Joe go unchecked for so long, that it took nearly nine months before anybody felt some compassion for Max in that situation.  
  
He was ashamed that he was so helpless against what happened to him. He was ashamed that even up until the end, he had thought sometimes about killing this child. And he was ashamed that the beginning of this baby’s life had to be marked by such fear and anger and maybe even a little hatred.  
  
He should have taken her into his arms, but he couldn’t.  
  
Maybe it would be better for her if she never even knew that she was his.  
  
On the fourth day he finally leaves the bed and abandons the room, trying to wash away any memory of the experience. He still mostly keeps to himself and to Furiosa’s side, though.  
  
With his stomach flat again and his ability to just be male without any doubt or strange looks once again assured, the dysphoria over his body that he had been feeling over the last several months fades, and his spirits gradually lift from what Furiosa was worrying would be a deep depression. She’d seen it before, and it was never pretty.   
  
He starts thinking about leaving, about fleeing back into the desert, away from all the memories here and back to the life he misses so much, but can’t tear himself away from Furiosa. She’s still healing from two stab wounds, and it seems he had taken a lot out of her over the last few days. She used to grumble and argue about being confined to a bed, but now she sleeps more deeply than she has in days. She had been there for him, and now he needs to be there for her. It doesn’t matter that she insists she’s fine. She’s all that matters to him.  
  
As the days pass, however, his mind drifts to the child he has been trying to forget. He finds himself wondering what she looks like, what her laugh sounds like, if she needs him. He chases the last thought away. Of course she doesn’t need him. He can’t even feed her. But the thoughts return.  
  
The further away he gets from the experience of giving birth, of being pregnant and miserable to begin with, the more the pain and fear and anger he had felt fade. Two weeks after his daughter was born, he’s sitting with Furiosa up on the top of the Citadel, amongst the green; they have both been told to get some sun for their health and mood. Furiosa had stopped asking Max about seeing his daughter days ago.  
  
He clears his throat. “I think I should see her…”  
  
She looks over at him calmly. “Are you sure?”  
  
He’s not, but he nods.  
  
Down with the ex-milking mothers, they find Dee, the woman who had taken his baby into her care. Furiosa motions for him to stay back, and steps ahead to talk to her quietly for a minute.  
  
“Sit,” Furiosa says as she comes back to Max, and he quietly does as she says.  
  
The woman smiles at him softly and goes to a crib and picks up a bundle, then walks slowly toward Max. Max watches and feels fear creep up his chest again. He starts to breathe a little heavier and a sweat breaks out on his forehead. He tries to control himself. Furiosa waves Dee away urgently and crouches beside Max.  
  
“You don’t have to do this if you’re not ready. She’s well cared for. She can wait.”  
  
Max looks over at her, closes his eyes a minute, takes a breath, and shakes his head. “I want to see her.”  
  
The milking mother approaches again, even more slowly and carefully, then leans down and places the baby into his arms as Max forces the fear away. Max looks down at her, and for a moment feels nothing, disconnected, like she’s not even his baby. It’s better than the alternative, he supposes. He reaches toward her face and pulls aside the blanket partially covering it, and her eyes blink sleepily open and gaze up at him.  
  
“Hey,” he murmurs, feeling a subtle warmth start to spread through his chest, taking the place the fear had been. It’s pleasant. He likes it.  
  
Furiosa sits beside him and leans gently against his shoulder to see. Max looks up at her and gives a weak smile.  
  
“She’s beautiful,” Furiosa murmurs, and Max nods. He sees nothing in her face that reminds him of Joe, and he’s relieved.  
  
He just sits for the longest time, content to hold her as she falls back asleep in his arms. Furiosa stays with him, as quiet and patient as he. Eventually the baby wakes and starts to fuss. He tries rocking her and talking to her, but she moves on to crying, and Max swallows down the immediate fear that spikes at the sound. He focuses on holding her gently, on not dropping her, on not letting himself shake. Furiosa studies his face, sees he’s barely keeping it together, and calls to the other woman across the room.   
  
Dee hurries over and gently takes the baby from Max. “She’s just hungry,” she tells him, and pulls down her top to offer a nipple to the baby. Max leans back against the wall behind him and closes his eyes, trying to force the tenseness out of his muscles as the baby quiets as she starts to nurse. He was right before. He’s not capable of taking care of her.  
  
Furiosa reads the resignation on his face. “We’ll get through this too,” she tells him. “Whatever you need, I’m with you.”  
  
He looks up at her, but doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what he needs.  
  
Furiosa continues quietly. “She’s nothing to be afraid of. You know that. What if we spend more time with her? Get you more used to her.” She pauses. “It’s up to you.”  
  
Max swallows back a lump in his throat and nods. He’s obviously still got bad memories associated with her. Maybe they can make new, good ones to stamp out the old.  
  
He thanks Dee for taking care of his child as they leave. She smiles at him softly. “She’s a very good girl. And she’s yours, remember that. Not his. He has no hold over either of you anymore.”  
  
Max nods a little absently, trying not to let himself think back to when Joe did have a strong hold over him, and Furiosa guides him away.  
  
*****  
  
Max puts all his energy into learning to accept his daughter, to accept her place in his life, and his own place in hers. He forces away intrusive thoughts of Joe when he’s with her. Sometimes he even tries to convince himself that he himself is her father, not her mother. Joe had made him hate being born female more than he ever had before, and until he can wash that hate away, he at least tries to cover it up.  
  
He can only be with her for short periods, needing time to decompress in between, to gather himself and calm his nerves. Some days his mind works against him and he can’t go to see her at all, can’t handle the association with the misery of the time before she was born, the association with Joe. Dee cares for her for the most part, but Dag and Capable and Cheedo have grown fond of the baby girl, and often Dee has to send Max searching for one of them when he wants to see his daughter. Sometimes even Toast will take her and to watch over her for a bit. She has a big family now.  
  
After a couple weeks Max finally feels calm enough around her that he thinks he can take her for a little while. He’s starting to learn what her various cries mean, and she’s just been fed and changed, so he feels he shouldn’t be too out of his depth. “Has she seen outside?” he asks.   
  
Dee shakes her head. “As far as I know, none of us have taken her very far yet.”   
  
Max decides he wants to show her the sun and the wind and the sky and sand. He wants her to know that she’s free, not locked up in this place like he was for so long.  
  
Furiosa walks with him as he carefully carries his child up through the Citadel to the top. He still acts like he’s afraid he might hurt her.  
  
“Have you thought of a name?” Furiosa looks down at the infant as she speaks. So far everyone had just been calling her the Baby, and variations thereof.  
  
Max is silent. Names are important. They have meaning. He doesn’t know if he can handle the weight of deciding such a thing for her, doesn’t know if he deserves to be the one to give her a name. “I want her to pick it,” he admits.  
  
Furiosa smiles faintly. “But in the meantime, we can’t keep calling her Baby.”  
  
Max looks down at the child as she peers curiously around at everything they pass. “Can you?” he asks, “give her a name?”  
  
Furiosa thinks for a long moment. “Alright, if that’s what you want.”  
  
Max nods. He would like a name, if she were to pick it.  
  
They reach the top and the baby starts crying when the sun hits her face. Max hushes her and shades her with his body, bouncing her lightly to distract her. Eventually she quiets down and starts peering around again. Max doubts she’s ever seen the color green, or at least so much of it. He picks a leaf and touches it to her little nose, watching her go slightly cross-eyed to follow it, and smiling when she giggles. He lets her reach up and take it from him, and she crushes it in her uncoordinated hand and hangs on tightly. He walks her around for a while, keeping his back to the sun but showing her everything else. Eventually the three of them end up sitting in the shade of one of the terraces, the baby nestled in the grass between Max and Furiosa. For the first time in a long time, Max feels relaxed.  
  
*****  
  
“Amnisty,” Furiosa says as they share a meal one night.  
  
“Hm?” Max looks up at her, his brow creasing.  
  
“Name,” she responds. “Means freedom.”  
  
Max turns it over in his head. He likes the sound of it, likes even more that he can tell she picked it with care. He nods with a small smile. “Amnisty it is.”  
  
*****  
  
Amnisty quickly grows attached to Max, perhaps even more quickly than he’s able to get over his fears and bond with her himself. He doesn’t know if she has some innate sense that he’s her parent, but it makes him feel good either way. She smiles when he goes to visit her, and it draws him to her, pulls at his heart, makes him always smile back. She loves playing with his stubble, grins and gurgles when he takes her for walks. He always goes up to the top. He finds the tunnels of the Citadel bleak, no place for a child to be stuck.  
  
Furiosa finds him up there when she goes looking one day. He’s reliable like that. He sits in the grass, holding Amnisty close to his chest as she drools happily on his jacket. He looks away from where he was staring and over his shoulder at Furiosa as she approaches.  
  
“Hey,” she says, sitting down beside him.   
  
“Hey,” Max responds. He nestles Amnisty in his lap and looks back out at the desert. Furiosa wonders if he misses it.  
  
Amnisty is a couple months old now, still fragile, but not as much as she was. Max is less fragile too. He’s got a solid set to his shoulders again that Furiosa had only ever seen on him when he forgot himself in the midst of battle and moved on instinct alone. If ever he were to go back out into the wasteland, she thinks he’s as ready now as he’ll ever be.  
  
She follows his gaze out to the desert past the Citadel. “Do you want to go back? Out there?”  
  
Max considers it. “Yes.” He clears his throat. “And no.” He looks down at Amnisty as she starts to babble quietly. She kicks her feet, and he grabs one and jiggles it softly, bringing a giggle out of her and a smile out of himself. It feels so safe here, so secure. It’s not a lifestyle he’s used to, but he thinks he could get used to it. Besides, now that his fear of his daughter is gone on all but the worst of days, he doesn’t think he could leave her. He may still not quite be fit for fatherhood, but he’s trying, and he wants to see it through.  
  
And then there’s Furiosa, the only reason he didn’t leave before he even gave himself a chance to meet his daughter in the first place. He could get used to the safety and security of this place, but more than that, he could get used to the support and the care and acceptance. He’s been so long on his own that he’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be cared for. To have someone who would be there for him. It’s entirely new to him to have someone who would also kill for him, who would probably give her own life for him if it came to it.  
  
“No,” Max decides with a soft finality. He doesn’t want to go back out there if it means leaving what he has here.  
  
Furiosa looks over to find his eyes on her, and she catches his gaze. His face is serious, and she knows what it means for him to have made this choice. She reaches to his face, her hand spanning from his jaw to his temple, then sliding down over his ear, and she leans in slowly, giving him every chance to stop her. He doesn’t move at first, but leans in for the last couple inches and meets her lips. It’s soft and gentle at first, but they both grow more confident in their shared feelings, and the kiss grows stronger. Max is smiling when they finally pull away, but they continue to lean against each other, their foreheads pressed together as they share breaths, each taking comfort in the presence of the other.  
  
This is his home now, Max decides. He’s not going anywhere.


End file.
